Interview with George Lakoff

By David Brancaccio, NOW. Posted August 10, 2004.

Following is a transcript of NOW's co-host David Brancaccio interviewing linguist George Lakoff on PBS.

David Brancaccio: Four years ago, [George Lakoff] and colleagues at the University of California Berkeley and UC Davis decided to start a think tank called the Rockridge Institute. They felt Republicans were awfully good at winning the battle of words and they wanted to come up with new rhetorical weapons for the other side.

Lakoff is a noted linguist and the author of eight books including "Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think." We began our conversation with ways that language builds the frame in which we view political issues.

Now you say "frame," that's a key to understanding this. What kind of frame?

George Lakoff: Well, frames are everywhere. Think of what happened on the very first day that George Bush took office. A press release came out using the words "tax relief." Now a linguist who looks at the word "relief" would say, "Ah-hah, there's a frame in which there is an affliction, an afflicted party who's harmed by this, a reliever, who takes away this affliction. And if anybody tries to stop them, they're a bad guy.

You add "tax" to that, and you get taxation is an affliction. And if the Democrats oppose the President's tax relief plan, they're bad guys.

Bush We need tax relief now…in fact we need tax relief yesterday. And I will work with Congress to provide it.

Lakoff: So the word "tax relief" goes out to every radio station, every TV station, every newspaper, day after day after day. Soon, everybody's thinking tax relief with the idea that taxation is an affliction unconsciously, automatically.

Bush We're going to talk about some of that tax relief right quick.

What was in the tax relief package…

If you pay taxes you're going to get relief…

Tax relief…

Tax relief…

Because of the tax relief we passed.

Lakoff: And then the words become part of normal everyday language, and the conservative frame becomes part of the way you think about it.

If you're a Democrat, you want to really change the frame. The problem is that there is no existing frame out there. You have to create it.

How do you think about taxes? Taxes are what you pay to be an American, like paying your dues to have democracy and freedom and opportunity, and all the infrastructure that America provides.

Brancaccio: At what point do we, as voters, notice that being used on us? Whether or not we're conservative, whether or not we're liberal?

Lakoff: Only when it's framed in the right way.

A lot of liberals believe that the facts will set you free. It's in our inheritance from the enlightenment. Where, in the enlightenment that everybody is a rational person, all you have to do is just tell them the facts, they'll reason to the right conclusion. It's false.

And the Republicans have learned that it's false. They've set up a frame, they set up a narrative, and they set it up in terms of their values. And they get it as part of normal, everyday language and normal everyday thought.

Once they've done that, the facts are irrelevant unless the Democrats can learn to re-frame the issues from their point of view, and then make the facts fit other frames.

Brancaccio: Well, controversial issue that perhaps frames would help: trial lawyer. John Edwards is one. How do you use that as a political weapon or an asset?

Lakoff: Well, you use it as a weapon because it's been made into a weapon with terms like "frivolous lawsuits," and so on.

Lakoff: That is a frame that has been constructed by conservatives to attack trial lawyers, because trial lawyers, you know, support the Democratic Party in many parts of the country. So they're trying to de-fund the Democrats by attacking trial lawyers.

Now instead of trial lawyers, you should say what folks really are doing. These are public protection attorneys. They're doing public protection law. These are…

Brancaccio: Protecting the public.

Lakoff: Protecting the public from corporations and professionals who are either negligent or unscrupulous. And they're the last line of defense we have.

David Brancaccio is co-host for NOW.

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